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Seven Pakistani nationals are being held at Guantanamo Bay, but if it keeps the Americans happy, the government in Islamabad doesn't care By Fatima Bhutto Published 19 February 2009 Saifullah Paracha: the US alleges he helped al-Qaeda. He did not Zachary represents scores of America's most secretly guarded prisoners. When he meets his clients, they are often chained to the ground in shackles. He told me how some of the guards at the prison are 18-year-olds, suckered into the job with the lure of extra pay and the promise that they are a buttress against the aspirations of global terrorism. Visits from the Dallas Cowboys football cheerleaders and Victoria's Secret lingerie models, who have dropped by to rally the troops, make the difficult job and the long hours away from home occasionally worthwhile. But last June, when I met Zachary, a lawyer with Reprieve - the British organisation set up by Clive Stafford Smith to defend the rights of prisoners across the world - w...

The disclosure by a Pakistani lawyer that many people including Ajmal Kasab were apprehended by the Nepalese authorities in early 2006 and transferred to India for interrogation by the Indian intelligence agencies has once again raised the issue of the clandestine detention of foreign nationals in India and their use as clay pigeons in fake encounters to conduct coercive diplomacy against Pakistan. Ajmal Kasab is the only 'survivor' from among the ten attackers who held Mumbai to ransom from 26 Nov and 29 Nov, killing 170 and injuring hundreds and forms the pivot of the Indian argument that terrorism emanating from Pakistan constitutes a casus belli that merits a punitive action against Pakistan. According to Pakistan's Lawyer Farooque, who is running a NGO, 'Voice of Human and Prisoners' Rights' , Ajmal was one of around 200 people who were apprehended before 2006 and that an application by him to the Nepal apex court was currently pending in which the Indian a...